


Cranes

by yuutsuhime



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Study, Exchange Student, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Rural Japan, Slice of Life, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 23:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21290261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuutsuhime/pseuds/yuutsuhime
Summary: An exchange student living in Japan witnesses a suicide by train and finds comfort through her Japanese host mother's spirituality.
Kudos: 4





	Cranes

The train hit a person on the way home. He was bicycling from work, with his briefcase and suit jacket in the basket. I felt a jolt and saw some of the papers from the briefcase fly past the window. We had to stop for fifteen minutes.

The news said his name was Hirano, age 52 of Shizuoka prefecture, and a father of two young boys. He worked as a systems engineer in downtown Tokyo.

My host mother smiled ruefully and turned down the television's volume. Our dinner was late and the bugs were starting to come out and flit around the kitchen lights, occasionally disturbing the dust that had accumulated through the years.

"How was your day, Jordan?" she asked, in her tired seventy-something grandmother's voice. I was exhausted too.

"It was good," I said. I still couldn't speak Japanese very well, so it was best not to invite questions. I took another mouthful of rice.

"More tea?" she asked, her eyes wrinkling.

"I'm fine," I said. "I just need some time alone."

* * *

The bird was white, with stilt-like legs and long, sinuous neck. It stalked about the rice field, pecking at tadpoles and shrimp that hid in the roots of the plants. The early morning mist still clung to the mountains and the valley and the streets and my hair and the bird's feathers. It was quiet.

The moon was out when I got back from school. I bought tea from a dusty old vending machine at the station and drank it by the edge of the rice field, scanning; but the bird had gone. The frogs, freed from their predator, sang loudly. I could still hear them back inside the house while my host mother and I pretended to have a conversation.

She says it was a common heron, but I think it was a crane. I had bought some origami paper from the convenience store the last time she had me get our groceries, so I'd been folding paper cranes in my spare time. There's a legend that says someone who folds a thousand will have their wish granted by a crane. So far I'm up to ninety-four.

* * *

I called Mom from the train station. We talked about the rain and my grades and the crane in the rice paddy that hasn't come back.

"Are you making lots of friends?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Oh, that's good to hear. I hope you don't miss home."

"No, I'm fine," I said. "I have to go now. Love you."

* * *

Once I finished my cranes I threaded them together and hung them around the bookshelves in the room I had been borrowing. Each shelf had rows of photo albums, packed with yellowed prints and film negatives taken years ago.

I asked my host mother about the pictures, but she just smiled and said she would save them for another day.

"Tea?" she asked.

"Sure," I said, and we shuffled through the cramped hallway to the kitchen. She filled a plastic cup with tap water, poured it into the hot water dispenser, and we waited for the whistle of steam.

"So you finished your cranes?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"I wonder what you wished for," she mused, and glanced over at the heater. "Oh, it's done. It's done."

She filled both of our cups halfway, then three-fourths of the way, alternating back and forth until she was certain they were even.

"Go ahead, we can drink. But watch out, it might be hot" she said.

I smiled. "It's fine."

* * *

The bird was back in the field the next morning, poking around the water with its beak. A breeze blew through, and I watched as the bird took flight, soaring up over the street and into another region of the rice paddy, where it landed and ruffled its feathers. After each peck it would shake droplets of water off its beak, occasionally ruffling its wings again when it brushed against the rice plants. I realized I was late for the train.

"Thank you," I said, quietly, so nobody else could hear our secret.


End file.
